It’s that creepy, crawly time of year again. It’s Halloween! Here’s how to deal with your phobia of spiders. – with Christopher Paul Jones, Harley Street Phobia Expert.

Chris says…

So Halloween is once again upon us (is it just me, or has the last 12 months just flown by really quickly?), and for a lot of people, it brings up their fear….. Of spiders.

Now, chances are, you have to leave your house at some point during the month of October, so avoiding those eight legged creatures, is really not going to be an option. So – what can you do, if the simple mention of the word spider leaves you tingly and cold all over? In this article, Christopher Paul Jones outlines the three easy to do steps to help YOU handle your spider phobia.

Step One: Ask yourself ‘What do I need to believe in order to have this phobia?’

Explore your thoughts and feelings, and don’t worry, what comes out, doesn’t need to be logical. Do you believe that you need to be scared of spiders? Do you believe on some level, that spiders are going to harm you? Next, ask yourself, how true is that belief?

I want you to try and find examples, perhaps on the internet, of people who think the polar opposite to you. By looking at opposing views, it proves to you that your belief is not 100% true, and that there can be another way of looking at things.

Step Two: Make it small, make it black and white, push it into the ground.

Okay so the next thing to do, is to picture a spider. Take that mental image, hold it – and then make it small, make it black and white, and push it into the ground. What I mean by that is imagine taking that now small and black and white mental image and taking it from your mind, into your hand and throwing it to the ground.

Keep repeating this. Once you have done it, bring that spider back to mind and then repeat this step. Make it small, make it black and white and push it into the ground. How do you feel when you have done this a few times?

Another thing that you can do is imagine that you are above the spider, looking down on it, making it smaller, and putting you in the position of power. This technique helps you disempower the ‘scary spider’ and change the way that you FEEL about it. And when you can change the way that you feel about it, that is when you can cure your phobia.

One thing that I like to get my clients to do, is to add some comedy music to their phobia, and maybe do something like put their spider on roller skates. Adding humour to your mental image also disempowers the ‘spider’ and changes the way that you feel about things.

Step Three: Change your feelings and let them go.

Think for a moment about how your phobia makes you feel on a physical level. Do you feel sick? Do your palms start to sweat? Maybe you get a knot in your stomach? Think about where you feel this feeling, and then give this feeling a colour.

Then, imagine that you are playing around with that feeling, or that colour. Move it… push it downwards, and outwards, and move it away from you. Change it to a colour that represents the feeling of calmness or confidence.

And finally, bring all of these steps together… make the spider small, black and white, push it to the ground, change your perspective, add some comedy to things, and then play around with your feelings and turn them into something completely different.

Take a moment to think about how you feel now? Do you see how YOU are really the one in control of things? NOT the black and white roller skating spider.

YOU can change how you feel about something (and it could be anything) using the tools that I have outlined here, which makes you pretty powerful. You see, a fear or phobia comes about in relation to how you feel about something and it isn’t actually logical. Trying to deal with your fear on a logical level probably isn’t going to work for you, but tackling things on an emotional level is where a phobia can become a distant memory for you.

I hope you get some relief with this technique. And remember – the spider is probably more scared of you than you are of it.